African agriculture: Official urges U.S. to change approach as smart business

Medium_adesina_purdue
Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank,  with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, at left.
African Development Bank Group | Feb 25, 2018 
 
African agriculture: Official urges U.S. to change approach as smart business
 
ARLINGTON, Va. – The president of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has made a case for increased American and global investments to help unlock Africa’s agriculture potential.
 
He made the remarks as the distinguished guest speaker at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 94th Agriculture Outlook Forum in Virginia on Thursday. The theme was “The Roots of Prosperity.”
 
‘’For too long, agriculture has been associated with what I call the three Ps -- pain, penury and poverty. The fact though is that agriculture is a huge wealth-creating sector that is primed to unleash new economic opportunities that will lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty,” Adesina said.
 
Adesina appealed to the U.S. private sector to fundamentally change the way it views African agriculture.
 
“Think about it, the size of the food and agriculture market in Africa will rise to U.S. $ 1 trillion by 2030. This is the time for U.S. agribusinesses to invest in Africa,” he said. ‘’And for good reason: Think of a continent where McKinsey projects household consumption is expected to reach nearly $2.1 trillion and business-to-business expenditure will reach $3.5 trillion by 2025. Think of a continent brimming with 840 million youth, the youngest population in the world, by 2050.”
 
The U.S government was urged to be at the forefront of efforts to encourage fertilizer and seed companies, manufacturers of tractors and equipment, irrigation and ICT farm analytics to ramp up their investments on the continent.
 
“As the nation that first inspired me and then welcomed me with open arms, permit me to say that I am here to seek a partnership with America: a genuine partnership to help transform agriculture in Africa, and by so doing unlock the full potential of agriculture in Africa, unleash the creation of wealth that will lift millions out of poverty in Africa, while creating wealth and jobs back home right here in America,” the 2017 World Food Prize laureate said.
 
Adesina told more than 2,000 delegates that the African Development Bank is spearheading a number of transformative business and agricultural initiatives.
 
“We are launching the Africa Investment Forum as a 100 percent transactional platform to leverage global pension funds and other institutional investors to invest in Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa, from Nov. 7-9.”
 
The World Bank, International Finance Corp., the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Islamic Development Bank are partnering with the African Investment Forum to make private sector investments less risky.
 
The African Development Bank is also pioneering the establishment of Staple Crop Processing Zones in 10 African countries. These are expected to transform rural economies into zones of economic prosperity and save African economies billions of dollars in much-needed foreign reserves.
 
“We must now turn the rural areas from zones of economic misery to zones of economic prosperity. This requires a total transformation of the agriculture sector. At the core of this must be rapid agricultural industrialization. We must not just focus on primary production but on the development of agricultural value chains,” Adesina said. “That way, Africa will turn from being at the bottom to the top of global value chains.”
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